Remember how I bitched about Beverly Havlir never updating her website? Well waddaya know, she has a book out today called Educating Emily. I was a little worried about the title because whenever I see the word ‘educating’, included in an erotic romance title, the theme is usually BDSM-centric, which just isn’t my cuppa. All that flogging and submissive bollocks gives me the heeby geebies. I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a hot fork methinks.

Anyway, I’m pleased to report that it’s not a BDSM book. Thank Oprah for that.

Here’s the blurb:

How to drive a man insane in bed.

That’s the subject of Emily Sinclair’s latest article for her online magazine. And she has just the guy in mind to teach her — Devlin McKay. After all, she’s fantasized about the hottie next door for years.

Devlin is shocked by Emily’s proposition, not to mention aroused. She’s definitely not a kid anymore, and she’s not just sexy — she’s irresistible. He agrees to be her sexual mentor, but he has a proposition of his own. When the lessons are over, they will each go their separate ways. He’s not in the market for a relationship.

One night in the classroom — well, bedroom — and Devlin is singing a different tune. Not only is Emily Sinclair all grown up, but she has a lot to teach him, too.

Yeah, the blurb needs work. If I’d happened upon this book without being familiar with the author’s writing, I’d have passed right over it, but whatever, it’s a Havlir baby!

Anyway, I’m off to buy and read!

Eve’s determined to get healthy this year, so she’s joined a gym. She shares  her hilarious observations on her blog. They made me laugh out loud. I particularly liked these two:

“I hate those super intense people in class who seem to get off from adding power to every kick and grunting like they’re having sex. It makes me want to punch you in the face, especially when I can barely breath and it feels like my lungs are about to explode. I hate you all.

And to the guy who was kicking really high in the red shorts, dude, invest in a jock strap. I saw your balls.”

Funny. As. F*ck.

Mrs G had an interesting post called The Great Porn and Erotica Divide on her blog yesterday.

Now I read it, and didn’t feel that she was bashing Phaze, and the first few comments from some of the Phaze authors (for some reason I keep wanting to write ‘Litrats’, but I’m not sure why, I guess I must have read it somewhere) were fairly reasonable, and well thought out.

But as you know, there’s always one person who comes in and ruins the good work of his/her colleagues/peers. This time it was Daniel J. Reitz Snr, owner of Mundania Press and Phaze:

As owner of Mundania Press and Phaze Books, I can assure you that neither I, nor Phaze Books, has any connection with Literotica, now or in the past. At no time does this group enter into our picture. To be honest, prior to your labeling Phaze as connected to it, or part of it, or derived from it, I have never even heard of this group. {K: Really? Well at least one of the authors there is quite vocal about her association with Lit. By the way, that link features a woman with a finger stuck up her anus, so you probably don’t want to click on it… or maybe you do, who knows?} It has never been discussed on Phaze forums and lists, and has no influence over us at all……

I am beginning to question your motives for againing singuling out Phaze to show us in a bad light, while blatantly ignoring the dozens and dozens of other erotic romance publishers that publish similar books. Please do us, your readers, and yourself a favor and cease painting Phaze Books as some supposed spin-off of some other erotic group out there in the world. It does everyone involved an injustice and is simply not true. Thank you.

When I read Mrs G’s post, my take on it was that she was wondering how authors who write ‘traditional’ (hehe) erotic romance, and those who write for places like Literotica and who are quite open about their somewhat unorthodox sexual lifestyles, will get on in the future, seeing as some of the Lit Authors are being published by mainstream houses, like Harlequin, etc.

By the looks of things, somebody told Daniel J Reitz Snr that Mrs G was bashing Phaze again, so he came in with his size twelves, having not read the post properly. You’d think the beginning of Mrs Giggles’ post would have given him a clue:

Let me begin by clarifying to the usual oversensitive suspects at Literotica - whom I know are reading this blog despite their public declarations to the contrary - that this is not an attack on their sensibilities, moral, past lives, lifestyles, choices, lingerie, diet, or anything even remotely related to their selves. Got that?

Anyway, Mrs G followed it up with this post, and of course at least one of the usual suspects came out to play, as well as Daniel J. Reitz posing as a sock puppet and posting under ‘Anonymous’. Unluckily for him, Mrs G responded to this:

“I find it amusing when bloggers post stuff slamming people, then get all confused when people get upset with them.”

With this:

“To the Anonymous above, given that you have exactly the same IP number as Danny Boy (24.29.27.134), maybe you should just quit while you are ahead. You’re really doing Phaze no favors.”

Oh well, it amused me for at least ten minutes. What would life be without a kooky Phaze author or two eh?  Shoot, even the owner is a bit ’special’.

No, that title isn’t actually as tongue-in-cheek as it may seem.

Janine at Dear Author has a great post, a confession of sorts, up at Dear Author, where she outs herself as an aspiring author.

The post itself wasn’t what I wanted to address. What I want to address is the myth that Romanceland is full of Snarky Reviewers. No. It’s. Not.

It was this comment that caught my eye:

I don’t think there is a backlash per se, at least no yet, but more voices are being raised against reviewers that trash books, irrespective of who the reviewer is (author, reader, etc.). Fact is that quite a bit of snarky reviews out there have gone way overboard.

The subject of reviewing has been discussed a thousand times around these parts, a million times even, and every time we have one of these discussion, the subject of Snarky Reviewers are brought up, as if Romland is full to the brim with them. It. Is. Not.

When I think of ‘Snarky Reviewers, I think of Mrs Giggles, The SBs and possibly me, But beyond that, I start to scratch my head. Amazon reviewers? Do they really count?

Just like the supposed legions of Mean Girl Bloggers that parade around Blogland, I suspect that Snarky Reviewers are becoming a bit of an urban myth. Everybody talks about them, as if they are all over Romanceland, when in actual fact they aren’t.

TTG and I had this discussion the other night, following the conviction of a man who’d murdered a teenage girl over here. Apparently, he’d lived in Australia in the 1990’s, and had convictions for sex offences. His DNA had been taken over there, following the convictions, but because there isn’t an international DNA database, he wasn’t initially linked to the murder.

TTG and I discussed the pros and cons of having DNA put on public record at birth, and I have to say, I’m definitely more for it than against. There’s obviously the civil liberties, and human rights arguments, but I’m of the mind that if you live your life right, then you shouldn’t have anything to fear.

What say you?

And here I am again! (until Karen comes back to her senses {K:ain’t gonna happen}), to share a review. This one is not a romance book (hey, I occasionally do read other stuff. Yes I do, here’s proof, see?

The Man with a Load of Mischief, by Martha Grimes

This is the first book in the successful Richard Jury mysteries series. The back blurb reads:

At the Man with a Load of Mischief, they found a dead man with his head stuck in a beer keg. At the Jack and Hammer, another body was stuck out on the beam of the pub’s sign, replacing the mechanical man who kept the time. Two pubs. Two murders. One Scotland Yard inspector called in to help.

Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jury arrives in Long Piddleton and finds everyone in the postcard village looking outside of town for the killer. Except for Melrose Plant. A keen observer of human nature, he points Jury in the right direction: towards the darkest parts of his neighbors’ hearts…”

The Man with a Load of Mischief is one of the so-called ‘cozy mysteries.’ Whatever murder or mayhem occurs during the story, it is never on stage but rather behind a curtain. The ripples from these events are felt and seen as the story unfolds, but there’s no gore, and the author doesn’t linger on the brutal or the cruel. That is not her purpose. Indeed, it would seem that her objective is to engage the reader to race Jury and Plant to answer the questions posed by the plot, in the manner of Ellery Queen or Dame Christie.

Even though this is Ms Grimes first book, it is a very engrossing read with very few awkward spots. In fact, I didn’t really notice the few things I have quibbles with on the first pass, because the prose flows so beautifully that one can easily read through to the last page in one sitting without consciously deciding to do so.

While the pace of the book never seems rushed, the reader meets quite a good many people, and things seem to happen one on top of each other, as all the events in the book take place in barely ten days. Most of the characters tend to evoke strong reactions—either positive or negative. On a second reading, some of these characters can become slightly less real, not as well developed, their characterization not as polished. More caricature than people, if you will. And yet, they still evoke the same strong reaction in the reader as they did upon meeting them.

As for my quibbles…

One of them is the presence of a few passages, beautifully and evocatively written, that do absolutely nothing for either the plot or the character development. Mercifully, these are neither long nor many, but other than showcasing Ms Grimes mastery of the language, they are completely extraneous and unnecessary.

Another one is the time and space devoted to the introduction of a few minor characters whose only purpose—in this book at least—seems to be to set up the two main characters. This in itself is an excellent device, as it shows the readers who these two are, instead of telling them. On the second reading, though, I realize that these minor characters are a little too well developed themselves for the role they actually play in this book. It is as if Ms Grimes had several other books already in mind, and decided to introduce these characters ahead of time. Which is all good and well for readers going on to read the next book or books in the series, but otherwise it clutters this story.

All in all, a very enjoyable introduction to a new-to-me writer. Now I have some twenty other books to look forward to!

…Please update your website. You’re one of only a handful of Elloras Cave writers that I still read, and like, so I would be grateful if you could let me know what you are up to.

Whilst you’re at it, can you possibly try and avoid writing for Changeling Press FREE PUBLICITY! FREE PUBLICITY! FREE PUBLICITY! in the future? It’s not because their books suck or anything (well, not all of them I’m sure), and it’s not due to the fact that their covers make my eyes bleed either. The thing is, I don’t buy from them anymore, at least not since the owner came on here and lost her damn mind. So if you release any books with them, I wont be able to purchase, and that would make me sad.

You understand my dilemma don’t you?

You can blame Gisele Bundchen if you like, that bitch totally gets around.

((((Hugs and flowery kisses)))))

Yours sincerely,

Karen Scott
Age 32 years and 11 months.

What. The. Fuck?

A 16-year-old girl has given birth to triplets for the second time in a case which has stunned doctors and caused outrage in Argentina.

The girl, named only as Pamela, had a second set of female triplets earlier this month after giving birth to her first set at the age of 15 in July 2006. She had her first child, a boy, when she was just 14.

All seven children were born prematurely but without any kind of fertility treatment. While doctors say the three newborns and their mother are well, the case has sparked debate across Argentina.

The girl is sixteen and she already has seven children? Whatever happened to sex education? Or The Pill, even?

I can’t even blame Gisele Bundchen for this. Dammit.

Dear Author

What’s the point of writing a kick-ass, gun-toting, bad-ass heroine, only to have her turn into a stupid-assed, snivelling jelly tot who has to be rescued by the hero?

Yours sincerely

Karen Scott

Are All Romance Ebooks on crack?

And you know which of her books won? The twincest one.

I mean seriously?

All I can say is, if All Romance Ebooks wanted to be taken seriously, they just took a long-assed detour. Any website where Carol Lynne is heralded as one of the best e-book authors of the year, deserves to have the piss taken out of them.

Thanks to you-know-who for the link.